A liturgy for: Summertime Nostalgia
The Summer Chronicles: Chapter 2
The Summer Chronicles — In this series, I’m sharing reflections + liturgies for moms centered around the summer season. My hope is that these words would bring a sense of sacredness, meaning and worship to the ordinary, summertime moments of daily life as a parent.
The Pressure to Soak it All In
Nostalgia for the moment itself: do you ever feel this?
Motherhood’s brightest moments so often can also be tinged with a sadness. It’s a sadness that the goodness of the moment is passing by, that it won’t last forever. The summer season is certainly full of these moments —
The baby’s first time to feel the ocean on their toes.
The whole extended family sitting around the campfire in the mountains.
A slow, sweet morning together, pajamas on ‘til noon.
Realizing it’s all going by so fast, we can often react with a sense of anxiety, pressure… We can cling to the moment, straining to soak it all up.
Storing Up Treasures in Heaven
And yet, this anxiety and pressure taint the moment, pulling us from the present goodness. It seems the way to best enjoy moments is not with clenched fists but with hands open, surrendering to time’s passing nature.
And perhaps, we might be more easily able to open our hands when we remember that everything is held in God’s.
Scripture repeatedly suggests that anything in Christ is somehow gathered up, purified, and carried forward into God’s eternal kingdom. The Bible doesn’t fully explain how this works, but it consistently teaches that our labor, character, worship, relationships, and acts of love have enduring significance. And I don’t think backyard sunsets and family pool days are excluded here.
There’s a passage in Revelation that talks about the prayers of God’s people being stored up like “golden bowls full of incense” (Revelation 5:8). It seems that in some way, the goodness of motherhood and the memories we so deeply cherish are held in heaven as well. Perhaps they are the heavenly treasures talked about in Scripture that “neither moth nor rust destroy” and that “thieves do not break in and steal” (Matthew 6:20).
This summer, may we receive the goodness to come as a gift for the present, trusting they are also shot through with an enduring, eternal nature.
A liturgy for: When Time Moves too Fast
As I fold and put away little clothes that have become too small all too quickly, or come across old photos reminding me I have forgotten the way my baby used to fit in my arms just so, I glimpse a thief slipping away in the shadows with my precious minutes, hours and days. And yet, If heaven’s vessels hold the prayers of your people, I wonder, might you hold our memories as well? Perhaps one day we’ll sit together on streets of gold, reveling and rejoicing in these treasures together. Oh eternal God, you hold time in your hands even while it’s slipping through my mine.
